In this episode, I talk to Manuel Müller, Founder & CEO of Emma the Sleep Company, Entrepreneur of the Year 2021, WHU, Kellogg, HKUST, and Harvard alumni, and angel investor.

Manuel went from founding his first business at the age of 19 during his traineeship to building Emma The Sleep Company into the leading D2C Sleep Company in the world that is on the path of reaching $1B in sales - despite only having raised only 7M in total funding and despite facing competition from half a billion funding behemoths such as Casper. 

We'll talk about his 3 core learnings when it comes to building market-leading D2C companies, notably about:

• how a lack of investor funding helped him to build the leading company in the space
• tips on how to stay close to the customers while scaling
• the smartest way to identify opportunities worthwhile pursuing

Plus we cover many more insights on founding teams, inspiring the right culture, etc.

Manuel Müller: linkedin.com/in/manuel-mueller-6300022b

Manuel's company: emma-sleep.com

👋 Get in touch with Kilian here: linkedin.com/in/kiliankarrasch

Do you have an innovative idea you would like to validate through market research or rapid prototyping or a validated concept you would like to bring to life (e.g. in form of an MVP)? Then book a free consultation here: http://bit.ly/3Xr0BvG 🚀

Timeline:

0:00 - Preview

0:37 - Episode Introduction

0:58 - Who is Manuel Müller

1:35 - Topics covered in the episode

3:06 - Manuel’s background and early life that led him to become a founder

6:19 - Why Manuel decided he wanted to start his own venture

9:21 - How Manual overcame critical situations on his founder journey

12:03 - The difficulty of having to be first-order profitable

14:06 - How to deal with the mental pressure of building a company

18:07 - How Manuel and Dennis created a strong co-founder relationship

19:44 - Scaling a business without VC funding

21:15 - The hypothesis that money will make you succeed

22:41 - The core differentiator that made Emma succeed

27:36 - Why Manuel changed the initial business model and built Emma as a side business

33:44 - Transitioning from a side business to a core business

35:04 - How big corporations do innovation

37:10 - The creative way that Emma uses to validate their product

38:15 - The importance of Emma’s product positioning in the market

41:42 - Why one has to change products to the liking of consumer Associations

44:18 - Manuel’s number one suggestion for founders/corporates to create innovative products